


from this dark room

by stargirls



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, M/M, Mild Gore, Paralysis, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, all of the topics above are addressed pretty vaguely but yknow. just in case, of the android and sleep variety respectively!, tread carefully and take care of yourselves!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-06-14 15:31:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15391860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stargirls/pseuds/stargirls
Summary: It was storming that night, too, and Markus, on his hands and knees, had felt the most alive he ever had.Now, all he feels is empty.





	from this dark room

**Author's Note:**

> a little something self-indulgent while i work on requests and the next chapter of cyberpunk au. we really don't address how horrific that junkyard scene was. i may have zero respect for quantic dream, but that, my friends, was nightmare fuel.
> 
> anyway, david cage is a coward who can kiss my apple taters. enjoy!

It’s raining.

Tiny droplets streak the glass and fall to the cold, unforgiving pavement below. Over the rhythmic tapping, Markus can make out the hum of construction, weathering the storm to expand New Jericho’s headquarters. A cautionary barrier hovers over the nonfunctional elevators; tarps shimmer in the dim afternoon light. Their single sanitary robot, affectionately dubbed Gerald, scrubs diligently at the floor around their meeting table.

He’s been idle for so long that most of the lights have turned off, but they come slowly to life when the door opens behind him. “ _rA9_ ,” North breathes. “I thought you’d left forever ago.”

Markus pivots and offers her an apologetic smile. He neglects to mention that he’s not quite sure how long he’s been standing at the window, because he has the feeling that constitutes as _worrying_ , and Jericho’s fearless leader losing his bearings is the last thing they need. “Sorry. I thought I’d wait out the storm, but it doesn’t look like it’s letting up anytime soon.”

“No kidding,” North murmurs. She joins him at the window and gazes out at the street, where cars wait impatiently at the nearby intersection and a few pedestrians scuttle past, clustered under umbrellas. It’s strange to be in the heart of a city like this. There was a time in his life when a trip downtown was novel, but now, life and chaos is everywhere they look. “At any rate, a trip across the street won’t be too bad, will it?”

“ ’Course not.” He catches her eye and says, “What are you still doing here? It’s the weekend.”

“You know that doesn’t mean anything to us.” North has a tablet tucked under her arm. Every so often it strikes Markus just how much she’s changed—she’s still the zealous freedom fighter he knows, and she still puts her feet up on the conference table, but the North of the past would never stay late on a workday or agree to incorporate a blazer into her ensemble. “I wanted to go over the protocol for Wednesday one more time.”

“I think you might be worrying about that a little too much.”

She makes a show of pursing her lips at him, and he lifts his arms in mild-mannered surrender. “I just have a bad feeling, alright? I’ve never had a gut instinct before, and I’m trying to figure this one out. Besides, your safety is worth it. Simon and Josh agree.”

That’s rare enough to stall Markus’s reflexive comeback. New Jericho’s inner circle does a lot of things, but agreeing is not commonly one of them. “They think something’s going to go wrong?”

“Not exactly, but I know they don’t feel any better about it than I do.” North sighs. “I know that’s vague. It’s been that kind of day, I guess. I didn’t think it was possible, but I’m actually tired.”

“Then go home,” says Markus, gently. “Forget about work for a little while. We’ll revisit the event on Monday.”

“Easier said than done,” she drawls, but she looks relieved at the prospect of relaxation. “Are you going to stick around?”

Rain is still falling and slicking the pavement outside. The wind is starting to pick up and send newspapers skittering across the road, and Markus wonders absently how the plants on his balcony are faring.

The sky illuminates as lightning flashes overhead, followed by a low, deep crack of thunder.

“Markus?”

“Uh,” he says, and hates himself for it. “I’ll lock up. You should head home.”

North doesn’t respond right away. She turns to look at him, and Markus is reminded suddenly of something she’d mentioned after Liberation Day, about how her model was designed to look soft and disarming. Whichever designer attempted that had failed pretty miserably, he thinks. Her gaze pierces straight through him as if he’s a hologram.

“Are you okay?” she says.

_STRESS LEVELS AT 38% AND RISING._

“I’m fine,” he says, lightly. “You said it yourself—it’s been a long day. I’m tired, too.” 

* * *

Markus is a lot of things, but being afraid to admit when he’s wrong is not one of them.

That morning, Connor stood in front of him and knotted his tie and rattled off the weather forecast, which included a thirty-two percent chance of rain in the early evening. “That’s significant,” he’d pointed out, smoothing Markus’s collar. “You should get an umbrella.”

“I’m just going across the street. And I should be back before evening.”

“True, but the Detroit Weather Prediction Center has a seventy-one percent accuracy rate, which is in the eighty-seventh percentile of weather forecasts nationwide—”

“If you’re going to get into the numbers,” he’d said, brushing a thumb over Connor’s lower lip to stop him short, “I’m actually going to be late for work.”

Connor had ducked his head—he knew exactly what he was doing, of course—and looked up at Markus through dark, feathery eyelashes. “There’s a variety store down the street. It’s a ten-minute walk, at worst.”

“Ten minutes,” was Markus’s thoughtful response.  “I mean, sure, I could make it, but if I’m being honest, I was thinking of something better we could do with that time.”

Connor’s only condition was that they didn’t undo the tie. They’d both left fifteen minutes later, and in his rush to get to New Jericho and clear his head of simulated adrenaline, Markus had forgotten all about the umbrella.

It’s still storming when he locks the front door behind him and idles under the awning. New Jericho is a sharp, glittering prism of a building, and when the sky is clear, it takes on a pale glow that shines through the haze and chaos of construction. Today, it’s grey because everything else is. The concrete around the entrance has yet to be laid, and rain soaks the dirt path leading to the street. It winds around small mounds of waste and scrap metal, downtrodden by construction workers—androids on commission. They’re paid to work with the machines in the off hours and build until first light.

They could die, Markus thinks, and be buried so easily under those tiny hills; stripped of their skin and covered in dirt and scrap and replaced within the hour. The land in front of him already looks so much like a graveyard.

And he knows that because—

The rain is cool and sharp against his skin. Markus’s loafers leave imprints in the dirt as he goes, sinking into the ground and making every step feel like part of an uphill climb. His hands are curled in his pockets, but they’d been open and grasping that night, fumbling for a hold on anything he could manage. He’d grabbed the arm of a still-twitching android, which had looked at him and hissed as he’d pushed himself up. Broken, deformed hands had snagged at his heels and tried to pull themselves out of a sea of discarded parts. None of them screamed. They’d reached out and whimpered and sobbed, and it was worse than anything else he could have imagined.

Their cries drowned in the thunder overhead, but he could hear them for hours afterward.

The sky goes white with another bolt of lightning, followed by a rumble that feels deep enough to rattle the chain-link fences. Markus’s shoes smear mud on the concrete as he makes for the intersection. He’d crossed a far quieter street to leave the junkyard district, one that didn’t see many vehicles apart from the CyberLife junkers but still had a traffic control signal on either side. It stood at _DON’T WALK_ as Markus had seized and shivered and ripped tiny holes in his coat with his fingernails.

The signal gave him fifteen seconds to get across. He’d taken thirty, because he’d gotten distracted watching the light shift and reflect in the pavement beneath him. The only light from the junkyard had come from the sickly, manufactured watchlamps and the occasional explosion of lightning, which lasted a fragmented second before Markus was plunged back into darkness. Every time, he’d seen new horrors. A body with no head, thrashing on the ground; an android vivisected with its innards spilling into the dirt; a torso crawling desperately towards its lower half—

“Hey, what the _hell_ are you—?”

A hand closes around Markus’s forearm and jerks him violently against the curb just as a car goes flying past. Markus takes a clumsy step up onto the sidewalk, and the man releases his grip, wild-eyed as he staggers back. “Jesus,” he breathes. “Are you suicidal?”

The signal across the street glows a steady, brilliant red. _DON’T WALK_. There’s no one else at the crosswalk, and when Markus turns to meet the man’s gaze, a glimmer of recognition flashes across his face.

“You’re, uh…” He swallows. “Sorry. Uh. Are you okay?”

_STRESS LEVELS AT 62% AND RISING._

“I’m fine,” says Markus, and offers the man an earnest smile. “Thank you. I don't know what got into me.”

* * *

One of the new receptionists greets Markus when he steps into the lobby. She’s a human, one of the first ever employed by the building, and she always says hello to him and asks him about things at work. Today, she glances up from what looks like an expense report when he approaches. “Hi, Markus,” she says, and lifts her eyebrows. “I think you might need to get yourself an umbrella! How was work?”

“Just fine,” says Markus, and returns her smile with one of his own. He makes his way over to the elevator and places his hand on one of the scanners, and his skin falls away to make the connection. They’re new installations—one of North’s many conditions that she’d insisted upon for him to live in public housing. “You’re the leader of a _revolution_ ,” she’d said, when he’d tried to protest. “There are people out there who don’t just want to kill you, they want to make you suffer. The least you could do is agree to a little extra security.”

Markus wonders, as he steps onto the elevator, what kind of hell someone could put him through that he hasn’t already experienced.

_STRESS LEVELS AT 74% AND RISING._

He steps out onto a glossy, pristine floor, lined with the odd synthetic plant and abstract work of art. The end of the hall is a floor-to-ceiling window made of reinforced glass—another one of North’s conditions—and Markus can already make out the rain lashing against it, picking up in strength and intensity as the sky shudders with another crack of thunder. He thinks of North, who lives farther than he does but prefers walking to taking the train any day. He hopes that just this once she’s decided to take the train.

His door is the only one with a hand scanner and a manual bolt. Markus initializes another connection, then takes out his key and goes to slide it into the lock. It catches on the edge and grates against the metal rim.

For less than a fraction of a second, he stares down at the key, which has drawn a thin, neat scratch across its keyhole and now hangs loosely in his hand.

_STRESS LEVELS AT 76% AND RISING._

The first thing Markus hears is the television’s low hum, accompanied by a soft, blue glow that spills past the entryway and casts layered shadows against the wall. He closes the door as quietly as he can, turns the lock, and hangs his coat over the mat to keep rain from dripping onto the floor. His shoes are slotted neatly into the empty space beneath the coat rack. The hall light detects his movements and comes slowly to life overhead, and as it does, Markus can make out his reflection in the mirror. He steps closer and blinks. The other android does, too.

_STRESS LEVELS AT 77% AND RISING._

He rounds the corner, and another flash of lightning breaks the sky apart outside. The television is a dark screen dotted with small, white stars, and a narrator’s deep, calm voice drifts over the back of the couch. In the low light, Connor’s LED spins an unbroken yellow and looks like one of the galaxies. He’s dozing, resting against the heel of his hand as the documentary winds on in the background, and the storm’s persistence doesn’t seem to disturb him at all.

Markus’s feet are quiet against the wooden flooring. He comes quietly around the couch and sits down, then pulls his feet up onto the cushion, loops his arms around Connor’s waist, and leans into the curve of his shoulder. “ _Minerva,_ ” the narrator is saying, “ _is located approximately two million light years away from Earth. It was discovered using the fourth ever DSE probe to be launched, but that’s not its only claim to fame._ ”

Connor has always been a light sleeper. He stirs as soon as Markus settles against him, slow and lazy and struggling to emerge from the haze of early evening. “Markus?”

“Hi,” Markus murmurs into his shoulder. “Is this okay?”

He has his eyes screwed shut, but even without the benefit of sight, Markus can feel the situation piecing itself together in Connor’s mind. He’s not exactly being subtle. They’ve discussed thunderstorms before—once, in a garden, and again, in the late hours of a Saturday morning. Trauma, as they’ve found, is a surprisingly intimate thing.

Connor’s reply breaks the narrator’s calming monotone. “Of course,” he says, and then, “All shades.” A quiet whirring starts up from across the room as the window blinds begin to lower, and through his eyelids, Markus can detect the lights rising to compensate.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He laces one of his hands with Connor’s and says, _« Not really. »_

_STRESS LEVELS AT 73%._

Connor nods and rests his other hand over their tangled fingers. Markus has no doubt that he’s already performed a full software analysis or two, and knows that if Markus’s LED were still intact, it would be flickering red and spinning fast enough to look steady. He doesn’t say a word.

“ _Minerva is a complex beauty,_ ” the narrator lilts. “ _It may be the first discovered exoplanet to have an active ecosystem with the presence of water, but this is no daughter of Mother Nature._ ”

_« A space documentary? »_

_« I was bored, »_ Connor transmits. _« And space is very interesting. »_

Markus smiles against his neck. His stress levels continue to drop, slowly but surely, dipping in small valleys across his peripheral. _« I’m sorry if I startled you. »_

 _« You didn’t. I’m glad you’re home. »_ Connor rests his head over Markus’s. He hasn’t said anything about the way Markus shudders when the sound of thunder filters through the shades, or his white-knuckled grip on Connor’s hand. Their current interface is for communication and nothing more, because Markus refuses to flood Connor with the memories and sensations that are trying to drown him, but he knows the understanding is there all the same. Why else would Connor hold him without asking questions?

_STRESS LEVELS AT 42%._

Markus shifts. He turns on his side and squints into the bright glow of the television, then presses a featherlight kiss to the underside of Connor’s jaw.

“Thanks,” he says, and lets his gratitude flow through the channel between them.

Connor’s expression remains impassively soft, but his relief is cool and languid through Markus’s skin. “You’re welcome, Markus. Please bring an umbrella next time.”

His good humor is always unexpected, and despite the tension coiled in every synthetic muscle in his body, Markus has to smile. “You have to admit that was your fault,” he says. “Just a little bit.”

Connor hums. “I'm pretty sure it was a dual effort."

His smirk presses into Markus’s temple, and warm, familiar amusement brightens their connection. “Maybe,” he concedes. “ _Just_ maybe, though.”

_STRESS LEVELS AT 29%._

The documentary cuts to commercial, and with a tilt of his head, Connor mutes the TV. “I know you don’t want to talk about it now,” he says, rubbing a thumb over Markus’s wrist. “But when you do, don’t hesitate, alright?”

Confiding in someone is a new thing, and a brutal thing.

His recollections of that night are sitting in the pockets of his coat by the door. Not all days are as good as today. Sometimes they follow him into bed, and when Connor isn’t there, he wakes up paralyzed as a warped, agonized android shambles towards him from the other end of the room. In meetings, the white noise of memory overpowers all other discussion—sometimes it’s a chorus of half-melted voice synthesizers, sometimes it’s the sound of Jericho’s people hitting the pavement. They were carted off, too, he thinks, and left for dead. They can’t have been as lucky as he was—

“—kus? Markus, can you focus on my voice?”

_STRESS LEVELS AT 35%._

“Okay,” says Connor, hurriedly. “You don’t have to think about any of that right now. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have pushed it.”

Markus blinks, dazed, and shakes his head. “It’s not your fault.”

“I know,” he says, and resumes moving his thumb in slow circles over Markus’s wrist. “I know that.”

The commercial break ends. The documentary resumes. “ _We now continue our journey across the Andromeda Galaxy,_ ” says the narrator. “ _Next up: Gaia._ ”

It’s still raining. Markus closes his eyes and listens to the music swell. Tranquility washes through their connection, catching him up in a small tidal wave of reassurances— _you’re safe,_ Connor reminds him. _You’re here. You won’t feel like this forever._

_Everything will be alright._

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr @deviantexe and on twitter @stellarlesbian!


End file.
